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In his latest novel, Ian McEwan imagines a future world after a century’s worth of disasters. The good news in “What We Can Know” is that humanity still exists, which McEwan calls “nuanced optimism.” He and David Remnick discuss the tradition of the big-themed social novel, which has gone out of literary fashion—“rather too many novels,” McEwan theorizes, hide “their poor prose behind a character.” But is the realist novel, Remnick wonders, “up to the job” of describing today’s digital life? It remains “our best instrument of understanding who we are, of representing the flow of thought and feeling, and of representing the fine print of what happens between individuals,” McEwan responds. “We have not yet found a compelling replacement.” And yet he does not care to moralize: “the pursuit has also got to be of pleasure.”

McEwan spoke with David Remnick at a public event organized by the 92nd Street Y.

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The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

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The filmmaker Noah Baumbach can recall when he may have fallen out of love with his craft. He was shooting “White Noise,” based on Don DeLillo’s novel, “on a deserted highway in Ohio at 4 A.M. with a rain machine.” “Oh, God, I don’t know that I like doing this,” he recalls thinking. “Am I doing this”—making movies—“only because I do it?” He channelled that angst into his new film, “Jay Kelly,” a Hollywood comedy of manners starring George Clooney as a very famous movie star who suddenly wonders whether it was all worth it, and why people keep offering him cheesecake. In October, Baumbach spoke with The New Yorker’s articles editor, Susan Morrison, at The New Yorker Festival, about working with his wife, Greta Gerwig, on “Barbie,” and why the first lines of his movies can tell you everything.

New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

No less characteristic of the holidays than tree lights or candy canes are stagings of “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens’s 1843 novella about the importance of valuing people over profits. Prominent among this year’s New York productions is a British import: PAC NYC hosts Matthew Warchus and Jack Thorne’s immersive, lantern-lit adaptation (through Jan. 4), complete with gingerbread cookies and clementines for the audience. First performed at the Old Vic, in 2017, the show has been revived in London every year since and has toured on Broadway and beyond. The current iteration stars Michael Cerveris as the harrumphing miser Ebenezer Scrooge; Cerveris’s experience playing prickly types, from the emotionally withholding father in “Fun Home” to the sociopathic Sweeney Todd, should make for a potent incarnation.

“A Christmas Carol” at Old Vic, now playing at PAC NYC.Photograph by Manuel Harlan

Elsewhere downtown, Dickens himself—as embodied by John Kevin Jones and Vince Gatton, in rotating performances—takes up his tale. Summoners Ensemble Theatre presents its thirteenth annual “A Christmas Carol” (through Dec. 27), set within the frame of a real-life visit that Dickens made to New York in December, 1867, to give a reading of his story. The show’s venue, Merchant’s House, is a landmarked nineteenth-century home whose damask drapes and gaslit chandelier supply period vibes—for anyone really wanting to feel them, select performances include a reception with mulled wine.

Also in its thirteenth installment is the less conventional “Thirty Years Christmas Carol” (Ars Nova; Dec. 8-9), an annual series that began in 2013 and will continue through 2042. Every year, the same couple—played by Andrew Farmer and Ryann Weir—age in real time as they navigate the vicissitudes of life, which so far have included a pandemic, a marriage, and a baby. But regardless of what’s going on in their lives, they always make a point of reading Dickens’s story aloud together over the holidays.—Dan Stahl

As a teen, the songwriter Ryan Davis was a skater sweating it out in the Louisville hardcore scene. Now he makes winking nine-minute literary ballads for the countryside cognoscenti. His latest record, “New Threats from the Soul,” feels like just that—unjiltable paeans to and from the down-and-out, not the guys on the starting line but those watching from the parking lot. (“You can see the kingdom / From the tailgate, if you stack a couple coolers,” he sings.) His slunk-shouldered Americana grooves with the standard-fare fiddle and pedal steel, but gallops with synthesized breakbeats. Davis and his Roadhouse Band play three Brooklyn shows, including a matinée. For fans of David Berman, Sam Shepard, tobacco-reeking leather, seventies Cadillacs, jokes with two punch lines.—Holden Seidlitz (Union Pool; Dec. 5-6.)

In Nazareth Hassan’s stunning new satire “Practice,” directed by Keenan Tyler Oliphant, Asa, a guru-like artist (the hypnotic Ronald Peet), forms a performance collective and—cunningly, over months—shapes it into a cult. To devise a theatre piece (they’ve got a booking in Berlin!), the actors willingly share secrets; each painful revelation feeds Asa’s vampiric appetite for psychic control. The audacity of Asa’s manipulations can startle us to laughter, but the play comes closer to horror than to comedy, partly because Hassan’s own control is so total. The dialogue shifts between weaselly art-speak (calling self-sacrifice “rigor”) and flights of literary beauty, but it’s the daring way that Hassan uses time—stretching the first act to two delicious hours—that had me following wherever they led.—Helen Shaw (Playwrights Horizons; through Dec. 7.)

Snocaps.Photograph by Chris Black

Since the late two-thousands, the twin musicians Katie and Allison Crutchfield have been fixtures of the indie-rock scene, both separately and together. Katie is a critical darling, primarily as the front person for the solo project Waxahatchee, but also, in a team-up with the folk singer-songwriter Jess Williamson, as Plains. Allison has become a cult hero as a singer and guitarist for the punk band Swearin’. The sisters Crutchfield have played together for various other projects, but haven’t been a unit since the split of P.S. Eliot in 2016. They finally reunited on Halloween for Snocaps, a band with the rock wunderkind MJ Lenderman and the producer Brad Cook. Snocaps concludes a run of its first-ever shows, supporting its self-titled début album, with two nights in Manhattan; Ryan Davis (see above) opens on Dec. 8.—Sheldon Pearce (Bowery Ballroom; Dec. 7-8.)

Ephrat Asherie, an Israeli-born choreographer also known as Bounce, came up as a B-girl in New York’s underground dance-club scene. Arturo O’Farrill, a pianist and composer, is the scion of an Afro-Cuban jazz dynasty. Despite those disparate backgrounds, it makes sense that these two artists would hit it off, since both are agile and eager mixers of styles. In their new collaboration, “Shadow Cities,” they bring together Asherie’s company, Ephrat Asherie Dance, and other musicians to explore cultural hybrids, fluid and hyphenate identities, and in-between spaces.—Brian Seibert (Joyce Theatre; Dec. 3-7.)

Lux Pascal and Ryan Spahn in “Richard II.”Photograph by Carol Rosegg

It’s a relief to see Michael Urie star in “Richard II,” Craig Baldwin’s adroit Shakespeare adaptation, produced by Red Bull—Richard is the part Urie was born to play. Urie has long been a comic mainstay on Broadway and television, but Baldwin’s nineteen-eighties version of the Elizabethan history play (shoulder pads, the Eurythmics, neon) triggers his impressive tragic capacity. This coked-up, sexually voracious Plantagenet king parties till the bill comes due, distracted by an appetite he mistakes for a divine mandate. Baldwin tailors the plot so that Richard’s most loving playmate betrays him; at the moment of revelation, Urie seems to relive the entire drama in reverse—you see him recall each kiss, each lie, with a grave, unsurprised sorrow.—H. Shaw (Astor Place Theatre; through Dec. 14.)

The unusual preconditions for Robinson Devor’s astonishing documentary “Suburban Fury” gave rise to its original form. In San Francisco, in 1975, Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford; released from prison in 2007, she agreed to talk on camera with Devor provided that no one else be interviewed for the film. Moore’s extensive monologues detail her romantic frustrations and her failed efforts at an acting career, along with her pivot to radical action. While involved with such groups as the Black Panthers and the Symbionese Liberation Army, she also bonded with an F.B.I. handler, given voice by Devor. The context is filled out with a tangy gathering of archival clips; the effect is a refraction of history through a uniquely warped prism, to nonetheless revelatory effect.—Richard Brody (Alamo Drafthouse.)

Illustration by Sophia Baidouri

Metropolitan Museum Crèche

There is a street in Naples, Via San Gregorio Armeno, where you can find shop after shop presided over by artisans whose specialty is building Nativity scenes out of papier-maché, terra-cotta, wax, and cloth. It is an art with roots in the eighteenth century, of which the Baroque crèche brought out by the Metropolitan Museum every year is a splendid example. This installation depicts entire street scenes: animals, food stands, fishermen, the Magi—and, of course, the cozy Nativity itself. (Metropolitan Museum of Art; through Jan. 6.)

“Radio City Christmas Spectacular”
The Radio City Rockettes kicked off a hundred years ago, in St. Louis. Their “Christmas Spectacular” in New York is a relatively young ninety-two. Over the decades, some technological innovations have accrued, including, this year, a new sound system. The group’s centenary hasn’t occasioned new material, but oldest is best anyway in this show: the well-maintained precision of the tapping, kicking dancers; and the built-to-last construction of the “Parade of Wooden Soldiers” number, which has been collapsing in slow motion since the Spectacular began. (Radio City Music Hall; through Jan. 5.)

Nutcrackers Galore

There is a point in December when “The Nutcracker” becomes ubiquitous; love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. But not all “Nutcrackers” are the same. In addition to the canonical version—“George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker,” at New York City Ballet (David H. Koch Theatre; through Jan. 4)—also worth a mention is “Nut/Cracked,” by the Bang Group, featuring tap dance in pointe shoes and a snow waltz in which everyone keeps slipping and falling on imaginary ice. (92Y, Dec. 13-16.) And “Nutcracker Rouge,” a naughty burlesque for the adult crowd, is set in a visually splendid, Baroque-inspired world filled with sensual Christmas delights. (Théâtre XIV; through Jan. 31.)

“It’s a Wonderful Life!”

The story of George Bailey, a small-town banker whose intentions of suicide dissipate after an angel shows him his life’s importance, is a gift that keeps on giving. It originated as a 1943 short story, became an iconic Frank Capra film three years later, and, in 2012, got the stage treatment at Irish Rep, reframed by Anthony E. Palermo as a radio play broadcast by actors in a sound studio. Following revivals in 2013 and 2017, it returns to the Rep stage this year (Dec. 3-31).

“Advent Carolndar” and “Sugar & Booze: A Holiday Spectacular”

For anyone liable to go full Grinch after hearing “White Christmas” one more time, Julia Mattison and Joel Waggoner’s “Advent Carolndar” (Joe’s Pub; Dec. 4-15) offers a refuge of holiday non-standards, drawn largely from the comedians’ 2019-21 Instagram series, which presented an original carol every day from December 1st through the 25th. Also reinvigorating ye olde merriment is Ana Gasteyer’s concert “Sugar & Booze” (Town Hall; Dec. 15), featuring music from her jazzy 2019 Christmas album; the title refers to, in her brassily sung phrasing, “the best part of the holidays.”

“Peter and the Wolf”

Sergei Prokofiev wrote “Peter and the Wolf” in 1936, for a children’s theatre in Moscow. It is both a parable and a clever example of music education using orchestra instruments. Peter is personified by a beautiful, forthright melody, on strings; he encounters a duck (oboe), a cat (clarinet), and, of course, the wolf (French horns). Isaac Mizrahi is the avuncular narrator; John Heginbotham conceived the witty choreography; Prokofiev’s characterful music is played by Ensemble Connect. (Works & Process, Guggenheim Museum; Dec. 5-14.)

Holiday Carols

Will there be snow to dash through this year? Who knows, but we can still sing about it. Jingle all the way to Judson Memorial Church, for West Village Chorale’s annual Caroling Walk around the neighborhood (Dec. 20). Or take your one-horse open sleigh to Brooklyn, for the Dessoff Choirs’ “Welcome Yule” concert (Dec. 6). Maybe bells on bobtails will ring (whatever that means) as you sway along with the songs of “A Goyishe Christmas to You!” at the Kaufman Center (Dec. 10). The opportunities are plentiful, and they might even make spirits bright.

“A Very Sw!ng Out Holiday”
This seasonal variation on “Sw!ng Out”—a show that presents swing dancing, born in nineteen-twenties Harlem, as a form very much alive in the present—has happily become a tradition. The Eyal Vilner Big Band swings holiday songs, fabulous dancers including Caleb Teicher and LaTasha Barnes respond in motion, and, after the show is over, the band keeps playing for audience members to express their own holiday spirit on the dance floor. (Joyce Theatre; Dec. 9-14.)

“Messiah”s

If you close your eyes and listen carefully, you may be able to hear faint chants of “Hallelujah” starting to emerge from classical-music venues throughout the city. That’s right, it’s “Messiah” season. Catch Handel’s masterpiece at Carnegie Hall, with the Oratorio Society (Dec. 22); at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic (Dec. 10-13) or National Chorale (Dec. 15); or at Trinity Church (Dec. 10-12), St. Thomas Church (Dec. 11), St. Helena Church (Dec. 13), or St. Ann’s Church (Dec. 22). Probably any church, really. They like this kind of thing.

Jazz at Lincoln Center

For the thirteenth straight year, Jazz at Lincoln Center continues a beloved holiday tradition: Big Band Holidays, where festive favorites are transformed by the swagger and swing of an epic jazz orchestra. Directed by the J.L.C.O. trombonist and arranger Chris Crenshaw, in collaboration with the vocalists Shenel Johns and Kate Kortum, the series arrives along with an album collection that mirrors the show, created with the trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis and featuring such classics as “Christmas Time Is Here” and “Little Drummer Boy.” (Rose Theatre; Dec. 16-21.)

It’s impossible not to think about family as we head into the holiday season. This is the time of year when we’re faced with the joys and the obligations of kinship. It’s also, perhaps, a period when it helps to be mired in other people’s troubles. Television is a particularly fruitful medium through which to pore over family dynamics—often layered and multigenerational. If you’re already familiar with the dysfunctions on “The Sopranos,” “The Americans,” “The Righteous Gemstones,” and “Succession,” here are some lesser-known family portraits that are no less compelling.

A still from the “Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show.”Photograph courtesy HBO Max

“Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” (2024, streaming on HBO Max)

The comedian Jerrod Carmichael came out at the age of thirty-four, in his 2022 standup special, revealing not only his sexuality but also the profound strain that it caused in his relationship with his religious mother. He aims for even greater self-disclosure in this follow-up, in which he examines his shortcomings as a friend, a partner, and a son, particularly after Hollywood success. Though wide-ranging, the series has at its poignant core Carmichael’s attempts to introduce his mother to his boyfriend—and to reconcile with the fact that he feels impelled to repeat family dynamics he’d prefer to put in the past.

“Nuclear Family” (2021, streaming on HBO Max)

When the director Ry Russo-Young was born to two mothers, in 1981, the idea of gay parents still seemed impossible to many in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Russo-Young revisits her family’s unique—and headline-making—history in this engrossing docuseries about her biological father, a gay sperm donor, suing for paternity rights, and the lawsuit that threatened her already vulnerable family.

“The Other Two” (2019, streaming on HBO Max)

One of the best comedies of the past decade happens to be this painfully sharp exploration of how viral fame—and unresolved grief—can warp a family. After their thirteen-year-old brother becomes a YouTube celebrity overnight, flailing adult siblings Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke) spin out until they discover how they can support the guileless boy and their equally lost mother (Molly Shannon) in a demented new-media ecosystem none of them quite knows how to navigate.

“Ramy” (2019, streaming on Hulu)

Ramy Youssef’s dark comedy centers on a thirtyish Egyptian American dude who is figuring out what he wants from life, but its strongest episodes focus on his parents and his sister, with whom he still shares a slightly cramped home in the New Jersey suburbs. The house practically seethes with unexpressed longing and resentment; each member of the family feels trapped in a role they can’t seem to get out of playing. Its relatable grimness makes for a counterintuitive comfort watch.

“Vida” (2018, streaming on Starz)

Two estranged sisters (Melissa Barrera and Mishel Prada) return home after the death of their mother, only to be confronted with a major family secret and the intense gentrification of their Mexican American Los Angeles neighborhood. The show follows their journey as they try to rebuild their family and restore their mother’s bar as a community pillar—one that pays tribute to cultural traditions but reflects their progressive values. TV has too few shows like this angry and sexy and electrifying half-hour drama.

P.S. Good stuff on the internet:

• Charli XCX has a substack now
• Winona Ryder’s spat with Arthur Miller
• Postscript to an open marriage

One of my favorite jokes requires a little setup. It’s from the first “Naked Gun” movie, from 1988, starring Leslie Nielsen as the bumbling Los Angeles police detective Frank Drebin and Priscilla Presley as his love interest Jane. During a fireside dinner, Drebin recounts a past heartbreak. “It’s the same old story,” he says. “Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy, boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl, girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.” “Goodyear?” Jane asks, breathlessly. “No,” he says, “the worst.”

“Naked Gun” and its two lesser sequels are filled to bursting with this kind of nonsense—connected to reality, by a thread, thanks to the actors’ unwavering deadpan delivery. It’s a kind of comedy that has mostly fallen out of favor—twelve-year-olds are more sophisticated these days, maybe—and it’s especially hard to pull off in our post-irony age. So I was skeptical enough of this year’s “Naked Gun” reboot, starring Liam Neeson as Frank Drebin, Jr., and Pamela Anderson as his romantic foil, to mostly forget that it was coming out. But then word got around: it was really funny. And, indeed, upon watching it, I agreed that the movie largely worked—the clunkers clunked hard, but, when the jokes and gags landed, I was hooting.

Midway through, in a seduction scene that pays homage to the original, Anderson’s character looks out a window in Drebin’s apartment, admiring the lights of Los Angeles. “It’s quite a view you have,” she says. “You know, I’ve been drawn to the hills ever since I moved here for college.” “U.C.L.A.?” Drebin asks. “I see it every day,” she responds. “I live here.” Ah, that’s the stuff, dusted off and resurrected from some eighties comedy tomb. There were surely better jokes this year, but nothing made me laugh harder.

So, 2025. Good year? No, the worst. Still, there were some things that helped us smile through it.

Coldplaygate

The year’s most astonishing, unplanned visual gag involved a married (but not to each other) pair of tech executives caught embracing on a Kiss Cam at a Coldplay concert. “Either they’re having an affair, or they’re just very shy,” the band’s front man, Chris Martin, narrated in real time. The comedy seemed, at first, to be about just two people. But, upon rewatch (and then dozens more after that), it’s clear that this little vignette actually features a cast of three. First, there’s the woman encircled in the hug, registering a million awful things in the milliseconds before she turns away from the camera, her face in her hands. Then there’s the man doing the hugging, who, slower on the uptake, ducks out of view. O.K., fine, the world is now well acquainted with these poor souls, the subjects of countless late-night jokes, a Gwyneth Paltrow ad campaign, re-creations at stadiums around the world, and even Halloween costumes. But don’t miss the final beat, when the camera pans left and captures a third character, a woman registering the scene she’s just witnessed before becoming a part of it—her hand on the side of her head, grinning madly.

This Is Your Mother Calling

The comedian Emily Catalano told a perfect joke in 2024, but it made the rounds this year: “My mom called me today at 3 P.M., and the first thing she said to me was, ‘Did I wake you?’ Have you ever gotten a metaphorical and literal wake-up call at the exact same time?”

The Wi-Fi Is Down

The winner of this year’s prize for Humorless Tech Billionaire Forced to Endure Technical Difficulties During His Own Tech Presentation goes to Mark Zuckerberg. In September, donning a dopey pair of smart glasses, the head of Meta got onstage for a live demo of the company’s latest wearables and A.I. products. But then: glitches, awkward silence, the repeated ringing of a video call, nervous laughter from the crowd. “This is, uh, you know, it happens,” Zuckerberg said, tightly. He and his fellow-titans are endlessly, grotesquely unaccountable to the public—a distinction on full display this year on the dais at the Presidential Inauguration; in the halls of the newly “optimized” federal government; and along the canals of Venice. But, every so often, the gods concoct a minor tragedy for even the most powerful mortals, and a glimpse of life’s futility—and perhaps even its ever-present mortality—breaks briefly through. For a fleeting moment, Zuckerberg was like the rest of us, just another guy who can’t get his device to work.

Curtis Sliwa’s Sick Burns

Sliwa came in a distant third in another unsuccessful race for New York City mayor, behind Zohran Mamdani and Andrew Cuomo. But the beret-wearing, cat-rescuing, parade-loving pol won where it really matters, landing the sharpest barbs of the campaign. Responding to calls by the billionaire political dabbler Bill Ackman to drop out of the race, Sliwa mocked Ackman’s suburban home address and eccentric foray into professional tennis, and chided, “Come on, Ackman, stay in your lane.” And during an appearance on Fox News, Sliwa delivered what may be, word for word, the most deliriously cutting political takedown in recent memory, referring to an opponent’s alleged instances of sexual harassment and COVID-era mismanagement in a single phrase. “Andrew Cuomo is a creep,” Sliwa declared, “slappin’ fannies and killin’ grannies.”

“Six seven.”

Just kidding—sort of.

“South Park” Tells Us to Relax

What’s left to say about Donald Trump? The co-creators of “South Park,” Trey Parker and Matt Stone, fresh off a $1.5 billion deal with Paramount, found something new. The show’s impish pairing of the President and Satan, in a love affair that recalled an earlier romance that Parker and Stone had imagined between the devil and Saddam Hussein, got the bulk of the attention. But their key comedic insight was a bit more subtle. As astonished characters demand that Trump explain his latest outrageous decision, the President bleats back, “Relax, guy,” and “Take a rest,” then blithely carries on. “Relax,” I began to see, may be the defining ethos of Trump 2.0, insisted upon by a coterie of emboldened mini-Trumps, all doing their best impression of the boss. Graft, lawlessness, contempt for decency—this is all normal now, they seem to say, and objecting to any of it is the new form of crazy. Relax, take a rest, we’ve got a country to bleed dry.

The Sexy Thieves in Paris

News of the jewelry heist at the Louvre arrived like a dispatch from a different era—when world events could be strange and surprising without going fully apocalyptic. In this case, we got a romantic location, a nonviolent crime, even a dapper bystander in a fedora. A portion of the public was predisposed to root for the alleged thieves—even before fake mug shots began circulating online, imagining them as hunky male models. Jake Schroeder, the grinning TikTok balladeer, captured the mood. “The two dudes that robbed the Louvre are literally sexy as hell,” he sang. “Steal me, feel me, Louvre me, do me.”

J. D. Vance Skis in Jeans

In another fine year for protest signs, one welcoming the Vice-President to Vermont rose above the rest. The day before departing for a family ski vacation, Vance had scolded the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, during a tense exchange in the Oval Office. (“Have you said thank you once?”) The next day, Vermonters, perhaps the crankiest libs in the nation, responded with one of the Northeast’s coldest insults: “VANCE SKIS IN JEANS.”

Katy Perry Fails to Get Lost in Space

It was a fair bet that penis rockets would always be the funniest thing about Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin space business. But this year, Amazon’s founder sent Katy Perry briefly into sub-orbit, where, confined to a small capsule and overcome with the cosmic significance of her roughly eleven-minute voyage, she serenaded her crewmates with Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.” Back on Earth—and presumably before she read the comments on social media—Perry told reporters, “I feel super connected to love.” She wasn’t the only one. In the fall, the Daily Mail published photos of Perry making out with Justin Trudeau, Canada’s newly available former Prime Minister.

The Joy of a Few Small Beers

Everyone’s got an opinion these days about how men should behave—how we might rescue ourselves from whatever stunted, angry malaise has befallen us. Maybe more people should be asking, What would Sensei Sergio St. Carlos do? He’s the character played by Benicio del Toro in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” a karate teacher with, as he describes it, “a little Latino Harriet Tubman situation going on.” As Sensei hides besieged immigrant families from a semi-lawless and fully vicious federal immigration force, he remains calm, competent, dedicated to justice, and lightly amused at the fuss all around him. What’s his secret? When cops pull him over as he attempts to save the day, an officer asks if he’s been drinking. “I’ve had a few,” he admits. “A few what?” the officer asks—and Sensei responds, smiling to himself, “A few small beers.” So, cheers: 2025 has been another doozy, and we all deserve a few. ♦